The search started the next morning.
Not in headquarters.
Not in the warehouses.
In the city archives.
The building sat three blocks from the old municipal center.
Concrete walls.
Narrow windows.
Rows of storage rooms below ground.
Mateo was already there when Julian arrived.
A cardboard box sat on the table beside him.
Three more waited on the floor.
Julian dropped his bag.
"Please tell me those are useful."
Mateo looked inside one box.
"Depends how much you enjoy reading permit requests from twenty years ago."
Julian pulled out a chair.
"Not at all."
"Then today is going to be difficult."
They started anyway.
The city archive system was older than most people realized.
Digital records only went back so far.
Before that, everything lived on paper.
Folders.
Ledgers.
Maps.
Inspection reports.
Boxes stacked in endless rows.
The archive clerk brought another cart.
"Everything connected to freight zoning from nineteen years ago."
Julian stared at the cart.
